Brayton Cycle

The Brayton cycle, also called the Joule cycle, is a thermodynamic cycle describing heat engines that use air or another gas as the working fluid, combining isentropic compression and expansion with heat addition and rejection at constant pressure. It is named for the American engineer George Brayton, who built the piston driven Brayton Ready Motor in 1872, though the Englishman John Barber had already patented a gas turbine engine on the same basic principle in 1791. The cycle is the working principle behind modern gas turbine engines and airbreathing jet engines, and it has also been proposed for a lunar nuclear reactor and for closed cycle space power systems, in each case turning heat released by combustion or another source into shaft power through repeated compression, heating and expansion of the gas.